Chapter 1: The 10-Year Modern Dating Marathon of Madness

I hate running. You are more likely to catch me sawing my leg off than using it to run.

And yet, somehow, I’ve spent the last decade sprinting through the never-ending hellscape of modern dating.

🏁 No finish line.
🏆 No medal for surviving.
💔 Just emotional shin splints and a playlist of sad songs I swore I wouldn’t listen to again (but did).

I downloaded the apps, crafted the perfect profile (just the right mix of cute and mysterious), and swiped with high hopes that my other half was somewhere in the profile stack.

Then the Modern Dating Marathon of Madness began.

🏃 Mile 1: The Serial Situationship Sprinter
Started strong—consistent texts, inside jokes, even a "this made me think of you" meme.

By mile 10, he vanished into thin air.

🏃 Mile 11: The Love Bomber Flash Runner
Planned our entire future three dates in.

By date four, I never heard from him again. At this point, I’m just going to assume he’s dead.

🏃 Mile 13: The Roster Manager
Kept me on a rotating three-month schedule, popping back up with a casual "hey stranger" like I was a seasonal Starbucks drink.

🏃 Mile 17: The Forever Scroller
Matched with me seven different times across three years and two different apps.

Never once made an actual plan.

Commitment issues? No. Just a professional swiper.

🏃 Mile 19: The "We're Not Official" Marathoner
Texted me every day, introduced me to their friends, met my dog… but when I brought up exclusivity? "Whoa, whoa, let’s not rush things."

🏃 Mile 22: The Soft-Ghosting Stroller
"Sorry, I’ve just been really busy"—he says, while posting 32 Instagram stories and playing FIFA for six hours straight.

🏃 Mile 24: The Guy Who Brought His Mother on a Date
Not metaphorically. Literally.

His actual mother. Apparently, she was in town and he couldn’t leave her, but also didn’t want to reschedule.

I have no words.

And through it all, I kept running.

Because dating apps convinced me this was just the process.
 

That love was somewhere at the end of the race—if I just kept swiping.

But here’s the truth:

🚨 This race is rigged. 🚨

Dating apps weren’t designed to help us find love.
 

They were designed to keep us:

🔁 Swiping.
🫠 Hoping.
💔 Chasing a never-ending loop of matches, dopamine hits, and disappointment.

So maybe it’s time to stop running.
 

Maybe it’s time to stop playing by rules that were never made for us to win.
 

Maybe love isn’t something you find at the end of endless swiping and tonnes of matches that go no further than hey, but something that happens when you finally step off the track and step into a space designed for intentional daters only.